


One Warm Spark

by lonelywalker



Category: The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Genre: Age Difference, Birthday, Canon Gay Relationship, Character of Color, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:51:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's May at Westish, and Owen and Guert's relationship is blossoming into a romance - but also becoming a secret that's much harder for them both to keep.</p><p>Spoilers for basically the entire novel. And also <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Warm Spark

During his first two years at Westish, Owen had learned to love the insularity of the community there by the lake – just two and a half thousand students, plus faculty and administrative staff, all sequestered in a pastoral, collegiate utopia. He knew many of the other students through classes and his extracurricular activities, and almost everyone else by sight. It was good to step out of his room and walk to the library or the baseball diamond, and never pass anyone he didn’t recognize. Even without the navy-and-ecru Melville t-shirts and sweatshirts, it was clear they were all a team, and a family of sorts.

Living in Phumber, right next to Scull Hall, meant he had walked past President Affenlight on a good number of occasions too. They’d talked when he’d first arrived at Westish as the winner of the Maria Westish Award and a devoted fan of Affenlight’s work, but almost immediately Owen had become invested in the drama club, the Harpooners, Students for a Responsible Westish, and his relationship with Jason Gomes, and for two and a half years they’d never really spoken again. 

Owen had still seen him though: the king of all he surveyed, as if a clean-shaven and much better-looking Herman Melville had stepped down from his plinth to walk among the mere mortals. Affenlight was always dapper, always smiling, and he always seemed to know everyone’s name. Owen had been thankful that the literary hero of his high school years had turned out to be such an apparently nice person as well, but fawning over him would have been pointless and there had always been so much else to do.

At the beginning of May, toward the end of his junior year, Owen slung his Harpooners bag over his shoulder and walked the short distance from Phumber 405 to the public entrance of Scull Hall. It was still early, and the sunlight was making a valiant but possibly futile attempt to warm the crisp lakeside air. Owen was wearing a sweater and t-shirt under his windbreaker, and suspected he’d be wearing much the same over his uniform out on the field. 

Inside Scull Hall, though, he was greeted with a blast of heat as though he’d just passed through an airlock. Mrs. McCallister was sitting behind her desk with a cup of steaming coffee (KISS ME, I’M IRISH) and several brightly-colored files. She beamed at him as soon as she looked up. “Owen! What a lovely surprise. How are you, dear? I heard such awful things.”

Owen smiled widely, mostly to show that he could. The last of the bruises were gone, and although the doctor had said he still needed to be careful, everything at least _felt_ as if it were back to normal. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Such a rough sport. My grandson plays in the Little League, you know.”

“I know.” He’d had to sit and wait outside the president’s office on several occasions when he was waiting to discuss the students’ ecological proposals. That had led to more than a few conversations with Mrs. McCallister, who mostly bemoaned the lack of good rhymes for his first name. “Is President Affenlight in?”

“He is, wonder of wonders, but I’m afraid I can’t squeeze you in. The accountants will be here in a minute.” She tapped at her watch, still smiling. “I could take a message?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to…”

The office door opened and Guert Affenlight stepped out. Owen often thought that if one were casting the role of a college president for a movie or TV show, one could really do no better than Guert: imposing stature, distinguished silver-gray hair, perpetually easygoing demeanor, and the occasional tendency to forget that he wasn’t still a befuddled English professor.

“Owen!” he said, and smiled in full student-ambassador mode. “How are you? You’re looking much better.”

Owen smiled too, hoping he didn’t look too starry-eyed. “Thank you. I was actually just on my way to catch the bus.”

“Of course! Big game today! We’re all rooting for you.”

“I was wondering if I might have a moment? I know the budgets for next year are being finalized soon, and something just occurred to me about the carbon-neutral initiative.”

Mrs. McCallister cleared her throat before the president could say a word. “I was just telling our young baseball hero that your schedule’s packed today. But perhaps he could come back on Monday…?”

Affenlight cast a look around at the evident lack of anyone else waiting to speak with him. “I’m sure I can spare a moment.”

“The accountants…” Mrs. McCallister said warningly.

“Always get lost on their way here.” He ushered Owen into the office. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Mrs. McCallister tapped her watch again. “Sixty seconds, Guert.”

Owen took one step into the grandly-outfitted wood and leather office, waited until the heavy walnut door clicked shut, and turned on his heel, catching Guert by his navy Westish tie and kissing him up against the door. If they couldn’t actually lock it without Mrs. McCallister raising an eyebrow, this was the next best thing. Guert, good boy, didn’t even utter a murmur of surprise, just kissed back, his mouth opening, tongue finding Owen’s as his hands slid under Owen’s jacket.

As he could almost hear the seconds ticking away, Owen was the one to break off the kiss and hug Guert close instead.

“Is everything okay?” Guert asked softly, his arms encircling Owen beneath his jacket and bag.

“Everything’s fine.” Well, except for the Pavlovian reaction he had to this room, which involved a certain stiffening down below. “I just missed you.”

"I missed you too." 

They hadn’t seen each other since the Coshwale game, not even a glance across the quad, although their final exchange of cellphone numbers had led to several conversations as they lay in empty beds separated by an alleyway, and many more text messages by day. Owen liked to send them – _good morning_ , _heard from Pella?_ , _I want to come in your mouth_ – just to make Guert reply. At least in the past week, ever since their date at the motel, their relationship had begun to touch on real life and romance rather than fiction and absolute secrecy. Owen had talked about the upcoming double-elimination tournament for the regional championship and listened to Guert’s reluctantly-voiced concerns about his daughter. They had both worried about Henry.

“Also…” Owen said, “I wanted to wish you happy birthday.”

Guert smiled. “I was thinking if no one mentioned it I might be able to get away with another year of being sixty.”

Owen tousled his hair affectionately and kissed him firmly on the lips. “Pella didn’t call?”

“She’s probably still working now. Maybe later.” Guert gave him a squeeze. “Sorry I can’t make it to the game today.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there, but I might be late. Damn trustees don’t have any sense of timing when it comes to their meetings.”

“I really do have to go,” Owen said. “Bus leaves in ten minutes.”

“Mm.” Guert gently brushed his thumb down Owen’s previously-wounded cheek. “Wear your face-mask.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“Wear it. If you land yourself in the hospital again I’ll have to pretend to be your father.” Guert lifted a hand to flatten his hair. “What are we allegedly talking about at the moment, by the way?”

“I had a sudden epiphany about carbon emissions, but alas we simply don’t have enough time to discuss it, so we decided I’ll e-mail you the details later.”

“Seems like an excellent decision.” Guert reached for the door handle. “Let me know how the game goes?”

Owen smiled and kissed him one last time. “You’re first on my speed dial.”

***

The next day, following the regional championship final, Owen was first out of the showers, Mike and Starblind having finally convinced everyone that bathing fully dressed in champagne was not the most hygienic option, never mind how high their spirits might be after the victory. 

Dressing in his game-day slacks, shirt, and maroon sweater, Owen switched on his cellphone and snuck out to the passageway to call Guert. He hadn’t come down to the locker room to congratulate them, but perhaps that was just his way of letting the team get wildly drunk without worrying about their president being around to spoil the fun. 

“Hi,” Guert said, voices behind him. “Hold on one second.” The voices grew quieter. “You boys are doing all my PR for me, you know. Great work, O.”

Owen smiled to himself. “Can I see you tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“I’ll be back late – Adam’s got plans, apparently – but I’d like to…”

“Of course. I’d love to see you.”

“A motel again? I could pay this time.”

“No, no.” Owen could hear Guert draw a nervous breath. “Why don’t you just come over? Pella doesn’t seem to be living with me at present, so we won’t be disturbing anyone.”

A week ago Owen had thought their relationship was destined to be entirely secretive, somewhat seedy, and exceptionally short in duration. The idea of just knocking on Guert’s door, sleeping in his bed, waking up with him the next morning… It seemed too domestic, too _normal_ , to be true. “Well, if you’re sure.”

“Just hit the buzzer whenever you get in. I’ll watch out for you.”

Owen was ending the call when Mike, towel around his shoulders, poked his damp head out into the corridor. “Buddha – thought that was you. Everything good?”

“Great. When does the bus leave? I just have one errand to run.”

“Starblind has plans,” Mike said in the ominous, conspiratorial tone they’d been using all day, and scratched his chin. “Probably around ten. What do you need to do?”

“There’s something I have to get for my boyfriend.” The truth, for once, seemed like the least suspicious option. 

Mike didn’t even blink. “You mean Affenlight?”

Owen looked around in that furtive way that was hilarious when Guert did it, and not too funny at all in the present circumstances. Fortunately, no one else was even out of the shower. “Pella told you?”

“She’s pretty upset. Or she was, not that we’ve talked since Sunday.”

Sunday. It seemed as though at least a month had passed since then. “She hasn’t spoken to Guert either.”

“Great, so we’re all on Pella Affenlight’s do-not-call list. Sucks to be us.” Mike stepped closer, wiping sweat or shower water from his brow. “Listen, Owen, it’s not like I get involved with any of the guys’ private lives, or really care who you’re fucking, but if it were anyone else I’d have reported this to the trustees by now. I like Affenlight as much as anyone. More. But he’s, what, fifty? And president of the college.”

“Indeed. He’s also white, and right-handed, and taller than me.”

Mike sighed. “Don’t be obtuse. Pella’s worried sick you’re going to fuck him over, break his heart, and turn him in to the trustees. But I know you. I’m more worried Pella doesn’t know her dad half as well as she thinks and you don’t have anything like a good idea what you’re doing.”

“Guert’s an absolute sweetheart. You don’t need to worry about either one of us.”

“Yeah. Well.” Another sigh. “Like I said, if it were anyone but you, if I still cared what Pella thought, and if we didn’t have a national championship to win. As it is… Let me get dressed and I’ll come with you. What d’you need to get old Affy, anyway?”

***

It was close to midnight by the time the bus deposited the Harpooners safely back at Westish, and several minutes past by the time Mike, Owen, and some of the other more sober members of the team had escorted and half-carried the sobriety-impaired back to their rooms.

Owen returned to Phumber first, but there was no sign of Henry or any indication that Henry had even been there, and no messages on the answering machine, so he left his team bag on his bed, removing only what he had procured for Guert, and walked back down the stairs as casually and calmly as he really could past midnight. The lights were still on above Scull Hall.

He didn’t even have to press the buzzer. The door opened as he reached it, which was nicely convenient even if it made him wonder just how long Guert had been glued to the window rather than doing whatever else Guert did in the middle of the night. From the look of Guert’s apartment, Owen had to guess it involved far more reading than playing Tetris, or even sleeping.

“Hi,” Guert said in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, which was near-complete once Owen closed the door.

The kiss was supposed to be brief, just a “hello” before they walked up to the apartment, but Owen found himself lingering, his free hand cupping the back of Guert’s head, finding his hair damp. “You showered.”

Guert smiled. “And you’ve been drinking.”

“Not much. I’m bringing down the team average considerably.”

“We can probably do something about that.” Guert glanced down. “What’s in the bag?”

Owen gave him a light push in the direction of the stairs. “Let’s go up and I’ll show you.”

Upstairs, the lights were on in the lounge, an opera he didn’t recognize playing on the stereo. On the couch, which was where Owen had spent most of his time in the apartment previously, his head feeling as if it were going to crack open, was a paperback copy of Emerson’s _Nature_. Inside were screeds of notes in Guert’s neat print, the ink faded and the pages bleached by sunlight. Owen sat down, placing his bag on the coffee table as he leafed through the book.

“Drink?” Guert asked. “Or are you hungry? We could order some pizza.”

Owen wasn’t positive that the only pizza place in Westish was even open this late, but he shook his head slowly, eyes on Guert. “Sit down. I’m not my mother. You don’t have to dazzle me with hors d’oeuvres in the hope I’ll donate to the college.”

Guert sat down, a little forlorn. He was so, so exceptionally good at being a nice, charming, well-mannered host that he seemed to find it almost impossible to just relax. At least he was no longer wearing a tie or jacket. Owen wondered if he even owned a t-shirt. There was something to be said for Guert’s sense of style in such a rural setting, but generally not when having a night in with his boyfriend.

 _Boyfriend_ , come to think of it, seemed an odd word to apply to someone forty years his senior. But Guert was certainly a boy, and the boy he was sleeping with and dating, and arguing semantics with himself would get him nowhere.

“I wasn’t trying to schmooze your mother…” Guert was saying before Owen patted his thigh. 

“It’s all right. Just open the bag.”

He’d had numerous thoughts about something better, more extravagant, or at least more meaningful over the past week. But that past week had been dominated by baseball and frantic writing of papers combined with worry about Henry, as well as Guert’s worry about Pella. There were rumors in the locker room that the two of them had disappeared to the very same place, but neither Mike nor Guert was a good person with whom to discuss such things.

Guert glanced at him, as if it might be some sort of bomb, before easing a white cardboard box out of the bag and then opening up its flaps. He beamed suddenly, delight evident in his eyes. “You brought me birthday cake?”

“The very best I could find in the middle of the Milwaukee night.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Guert kissed him abruptly on the cheek and stood up. “I don’t know if scotch is really an appropriate accompaniment to buttercream frosting and sprinkles, but if any evening calls for it, it’s this one.”

There was no television in Guert’s apartment, but Owen could imagine spending many more evenings perfectly entertained by books here. There was no television in his room either, of course, and most of the time he read himself to sleep or lay awake talking to Henry in the darkness until one or other of them turned over and started to snore. Guert was certainly a better conversationalist than Henry, though, and much more amenable to having Owen’s feet in his lap.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I even celebrated,” Guert was saying, licking frosting from his fork in an adorable display of unselfconsciousness. “Loses its allure past thirty, honestly, although Pella’s birthday parties were always something to behold later on.”

Owen swallowed the last forkful of cake and placed his plate on the table, lying back against the couch with a contented sigh. “I find it hard to imagine you with a little daughter.”

When Guert had first offhandedly mentioned Pella’s upcoming visit during one of their meetings on the environmental protection section of the forthcoming budget, Owen had been surprised and… well, perhaps a little betrayed. Guert had been _so_ happy to see him for months, so eager to please, that he’d allowed himself to entertain the notion that the college president, a confirmed bachelor and the author of a seminal queer theory text, might actually be interested in him. The existence of a daughter, even one as brilliant and beautiful and generally appealing as Pella, had seemed to dash those hopes. Until Guert had turned up at the hospital, full of longing gazes and the desire to read him Whitman.

“I find it hard to imagine too.” Guert set down his plate and set to work unlacing Owen’s sneakers. “It was probably precisely like you imagine it. Pella essentially raised herself. I only provided finances and some genetic material. Not even much of that, from the look of her.”

“My mother has said the same about me,” Owen commented.

“Your mother seems like a lady who could raise a baby tiger to win college scholarships.”

Owen smiled, poked Guert in the stomach with a toe. “You may be right. Fortunately I appear to have been declawed at a young age.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Even after hours, even _long_ after hours as it was now, Guert still looked forebodingly presidential, as though no one could ever even put a crease in his shirt let alone attempt to ravish him in the bedroom. Their first kiss, tentative and by moonlight, had been the result of those long months of daydreams coupled with pain medication and a few too many glasses of champagne. Their second had been two weeks later, born out of frustration and need, a last-ditch attempt to see if Guert could ever be anything more to him than a strange sort of friend for a college junior.

On nights like this, he was glad he’d given Guert that second chance.

Guert dropped the sneakers to the floor, worked off slightly sweaty athletic socks with a finger and, just when Owen was about to remark on how much he really didn’t want to be tickled, reached over and hauled him up to a sitting position by his belt. And then, there, they were kissing frosting from each other’s lips, Owen’s legs still in Guert’s lap, Guert’s arm around his back. Owen lifted a hand to muss that perfectly distinguished presidential hair, just because he could, and Guert batted his arm away with a laugh. It might have still been a little artificial, this ease, inside a locked apartment rather than a locked motel room or office, but their world was growing larger by degrees.

“You finally saw me play,” Owen said, managing to undo the buttons of Guert’s shirt blind.

“I finally did,” Guert agreed. “You’re not half bad, Dunne.”

Owen pulled back, just enough to wriggle out of his sweater. “You ever try out for baseball?”

“Me? No… Coaches took one look at me and sent me to the weights room.”

“Odd. I often generate a similar response.” In the past three winters, Owen had spent a lot of time quietly reading in a corner of the gym, evading any attempts to get him to bench press anything with more bulk than his _Collected Chekhov_. Guert, on the other hand, might not have been anywhere near a gym in years, but still had shoulders that could make Starblind weep.

Owen lay back down, tugging Guert with him. This couch was far bigger and softer than the office love seat, and it was certainly tempting just to push his hips up against Guert’s crotch, rubbing into the ridge of his erection.

Guert pulled back from the kiss, breathing hard. “We, um… We should go to bed. It’s just, if Pella…”

Even though he’d never dated anyone even old enough to have kids before, Owen certainly understood that a few concessions would have to be made just in case his boyfriend’s adult daughter decided to come home in the middle of the night. “It’s okay,” he said, and lifted his head to kiss Guert again. “I’d love to see your bedroom.”

Much like the rest of the presidential apartment, Guert’s bedroom was both immensely spacious compared to Owen’s dorm and packed with about four times as many books. Several wobbly stacks of textbooks and journal articles stood against the wall by the window, and Owen suspected someone had done some tidying up prior to his arrival. 

He sat on the end of the bed – and oh, how nice it was to have a genuine queen-size bed with what felt like an extremely expensive mattress – and unbuttoned his shirt, looking with interest at the framed photographs on the dresser: Pella as a baby in Guert’s arms, a child splashing around at the beach, and a slightly pouty teenager. 

“You were so young,” Owen said, looking closer at the baby photo. The man in it was older than the boy in the register, now with a neat beard and shorter hair, but still…

Guert smiled. “I was almost forty. Have I really aged so badly in the last twenty years?”

Owen directed a mock-frown at him. “You look almost forty _now_.” Many men would kill for Guert’s striking bone structure, thick hair, and relatively unlined skin at any age. “You have to show me more photos sometime.”

“Mm, maybe Pella’s baby pics.” Guert toed off his shoes and undid his belt. “That way I won’t be the one being embarrassed.”

“Why be embarrassed?” Owen dropped his shirt by the side of the bed and moved to lie back on the comforter, watching Guert undress. “I want to know everything about you. You should be glad Pella’s here, otherwise I’d make you fly us to California just so I could see her with my own eyes. To imagine… another human being anything like you.”

Guert gave a half-smile and switched off the light, pushing the door closed those final few inches. “Pella’s not much like me.”

“Oh, you have no idea. You smile in exactly the same way.”

“Owen, everyone smiles in exactly the same way.” 

He didn’t appreciate the darkness too much, but the heat of Guert’s body was good enough until his eyes adjusted to the starlight, glasses placed safely on the bedside table. Owen kissed him blindly as Guert fumbled left-handed with the belt of Owen’s slacks. “If you really think that, you haven’t had enough people smiling at you… which, by the way, President Debonair, they are doing constantly.”

There was laughter from outside, down in the quad, and Guert froze for a second, just a second, as though anyone could actually see into his bedroom, two stories up, darkened, and blocked by blinds. Owen squeezed his shoulder consolingly as Guert finally worked his slacks loose. “She’ll be all right.”

Guert planted a kiss just below his sternum and rested his head there for a moment. “What did you want to do tonight?”

“Me?” Owen sank his fingers into Guert’s hair. “It’s your birthday.”

There was faint laughter against his belly. “The best birthday of all the birthdays already.”

“What did you do last year?”

“Last year?” Guert rolled away from him, disrobing completely in the dark. Despite the cool spring air outside and the age of the building, the apartment was still comfortably warm for two naked bodies. “Nothing much. I think Pella called to congratulate me on my incipient decrepitude. You?”

Owen gave him what he hoped still managed to be a condescending look, despite the light level. “You’re asking me what I did for my twenty-first birthday? You may be horrified, Herr Doktor, but liquor was consumed.”

Guert’s laughter was real, now. “I honestly can’t imagine you drunk.”

“Drunk? Never. But I believe I may have told everyone within a five-mile radius that I loved them, and possibly kissed quite a few Bartleby’s patrons of several genders.”

“Several?”

Owen nodded. “Several. But that was last winter and now here you are."

"Here I am," Guert agreed, touching careful fingers to Owen's once-wounded cheek, and kissing him. "Although I imagine if you'd appeared at my door back then, mildly inebriated, covered in snow, I might have been persuaded to take you in."

"Shh." Owen pressed his mouth to Guert's a little more roughly, pushing against him. "We both know you'd have bundled me up in a blanket, fed me coffee, and called Henry to come take me home. You're too nice for fantasies."

Guert chuckled and, getting the hint, pushed back. "But not for real life?"

"Mm, you're just nice enough for real life."

Bigger and stronger, Guert could easily press him back against the bed, kissing his lips, throat, nipples… It was a battle Owen was particularly pleased to have lost. Now that they were free from the restraints of Guert's office, and three weeks into a sexual relationship, Guert's initial tendency toward letting Owen take the lead had dissipated. Even if Owen were still Guert's first and only male lover, the experience of bedding dozens (hundreds?) of women over the past forty years had to count for something. And if he'd ever been worried that Guert saw him as just another of those feminine love interests, the eagerness with which Guert kissed and sucked his erection drove all anxious thoughts from his mind.

"Do you have lubricant?" Owen asked. "Condoms?"

Guert raised his head with some reluctance. "Drawer beside you. I went shopping."

"Oh, the rumors must be rife already."

"Doubtful. I went to Door County, and it's not as if I'm famous outside Westish. How many college presidents would you recognize?"

Owen twisted around to rummage in the drawer. "Probably just the one. But everyone notices you, Guert. You're too good-looking to ignore."

"Flatterer."

"It’s not flattery. My mother fell for you about five seconds after you walked into my hospital room. And she has standards."

Guert lay down beside him, fingertips caressing his belly. "People notice you too."

"Only very _specific_ people notice me," Owen said, sitting up and drizzling lubricant onto his fingers.

"Who? College presidents?"

“People with excellent taste.”

Guert rolled over onto his stomach, folded arms pillowing his head above actual pillows. The light from the quad beyond the blinds made it easy enough to see the lines of his body, muscles relaxed as if in sleep, eyes watching Owen with a calm trust. “There’s no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends,” he said, and smiled.

“Have something you’d like to disclose?” Owen edged closer, trailing his fingertips down past the edge of Guert’s tailbone, feeling the tense inner heat of him, the sensitive skin. It was wonderful to make Guert gasp and moan and press up into him with just a touch, but perhaps even better to touch him at all, to have penetrated past the age and mystique and immaculate shirts of the college president, to feel tiny warm hairs prick up against his fingers, to caress the curve of his skin…

“Plenty. Mostly about how good you make me feel.”

Owen bent down to kiss the small of Guert’s back. “You make me feel good too.” The words didn’t seem like quite enough, but perhaps the gentle slide of his thumb made up for it, pressing in just where it made Guert’s breath catch, and this time not because of noise in the quad.

***

Afterward, they lay together for what seemed like an age of darkness and breathing. Owen stretched out over Guert’s sheets, which were just as nice as those in his own room, but came with the benefits of a much larger bed, the scent of apples, and a lovely warm body snuggled up against him. He closed his eyes, feeling the waves of pleasure ebb and flow up from his groin, to where Guert’s hand was splayed over his navel…

There was a vague scratching in the wall behind them: old creaking stone, or maybe even a mouse, and Guert stopped breathing for just a second, his fingers frozen against Owen’s belly.

“Are you all right?” Owen asked. “You seem tense.”

“I’m okay.”

Guert really wasn’t such a good liar. Too essentially virtuous, too obviously concerned about his daughter, his college, the man lying in his bed… Owen opened his eyes. “Tell me about the house.”

It was the one topic that could make Guert relax again, lay his head against Owen’s shoulder and open up about his hopes for the future, his imagined home for himself and Pella, writing projects he might one day embark upon, and some mumbled remarks about pumpkin soup that Owen didn’t quite hear, so enthused was he by the topic of a new home and therefore a new ecological project. Even if it wasn’t quite his, it would be Guert’s, with no trustees needed to pass a budget on a frustratingly slow timetable. They could make real changes, albeit on a small scale, and if Owen was going to be away for nine months to a year, at least that would give Guert and Pella time to mend fences, including possibly literal ones, so that by the time he came back from Tokyo…

It had been ten minutes since Guert had said anything, and his breathing was slow and steady against Owen’s shoulder. He gave Guert a nudge. The clock by the bed, however, was edging past one, and it was no great wonder that anyone was asleep at this hour. This discussion was one they could resume in the morning easily enough.

Owen drew the blankets up over them both and turned over, a protective arm around Guert. That damned thermostat ensured he didn’t really need either source of warmth, but they were good to have nonetheless.

Later – and it was still dark although he felt he’d slept for hours – he awoke to find Guert returning to bed, his skin momentarily cold against Owen’s.

“Where were you?” he asked, a murmur that could be lost in dreams.

“Bathroom.” The blankets were drawn tight around them again, cool air dissipating quickly between the warmth of their bodies. “Pella didn’t come home.”

Owen ran a hand down Guert’s thigh. “How would you have felt about me being here if she had?”

“She’s never cared about any of my girlfriends before.”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Mm, obviously.”

Owen considered looking over his shoulder at the clock, but the time didn’t really matter. Instead he settled back against Guert, tugging Guert’s arm around him until his body curved neatly against Owen’s. "You turned down the thermostat." That, at least, explained the newly cool air outside the warmth of their blankets.

Guert kissed his neck. "And there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal."

"Do you have the entire book memorized?"

"Only the good parts… And there’s something to be said for a cold bedroom, if there’s a warm body waiting for you under the covers.”

“I’m assuming the good parts, in your opinion, are ninety-five percent of the novel?”

“Maybe ninety-eight.”

Owen closed his eyes and, for a moment, thought about nothing except the feeling of Guert’s chest rising and falling against his back, the touch of his fingertips against Owen’s belly. “There is one element of _Moby-Dick_ that perturbs me.”

“Only one?”

“Well, setting aside Melville’s troubling depictions of non-western cultures and people of color, in addition to his glorification of whaling and general ignorance of ecology, not to mention the lack of female characters…”

“There goes my ninety-eight percent.”

“I find it interesting, Guert, that a man such as yourself is so obsessed, to the point of tattooing your arm and quoting lines to your lover in bed, with a book all about the ultimately self-destructive nature of obsession.”

There was a quiet laugh by his ear, and Guert hugged him closer. “I believe this is the point in the seminar when I say something like, ‘Oh, you still think _that’s_ what it’s about, do you?’ and chuckle knowingly.”

“I would have to remark on the informality of your seminars, Professor Affenlight.”

“Oh, with a text such as this one, Mr. Dunne, you simply have to approach it naked of all preconceptions, one might say…” Guert kissed his ear. “Actually, though, you’re only half correct. _Moby-Dick_ is certainly about the self-destructive nature of Ahab’s obsession, but I doubt it’s attempting to stand as a warning against any such endeavor.”

“Guert, they all die. Well, except for Ishmael, but it’s strongly implied he’ll end up the same way sooner or later.”

“We all end up the same way, sooner or later.”

It struck Owen that this would have seemed like a particularly morbid, depressing discussion to be having, if he were having it with anyone other than Guert, in anywhere but Guert’s absurdly comfortable bed, sandwiched between Guert’s body and the warmth of blankets. “You never told me why you didn’t just stay at sea? You love the water…”

“Well… I’m a decent English professor, and perhaps a decent college president as well, but only a half-decent sailor, I’m afraid. Unfortunately there’s usually too much hard work and lack of sleep for idyllic dreams of life on the open sea. In any case, I tend to think that Melville’s warning wasn’t so much about ceasing obsessive behavior, but rather going into one’s obsession with one’s eyes open. Yes, it might wrap around your neck and pull you down with it, but for some obsessions, and some pursuers of those obsessions, it’s something with which we’ve made our peace. And sometimes, you know, it lifts you up instead.”

Owen smiled. He had never taken a class with Guert – here at Westish, despite the near-constant pleas of the embattled English Department, there were no classes with Guert to take – but their conversations gave more than a hint of why so many students fell in love with him, in one way or another. And, to make up for the relative lack of group discussion, he had the scratch of Guert’s morning stubble at his shoulder, an arm braced around his chest, and the very beginnings of an erection nudging at his buttocks. Which, all told, meant for a very pleasing start to the morning.

“So,” Guert said. “Are you staying for breakfast?”

***

Owen gave up on jamming one last book into his Harpooners bag and pulled the zipper closed. Luck permitting, the team would be in South Carolina for a number of days, and with finals looming next week, he would either have lots of reading time or have to make time, however much Rick and Adam might want to explore the bars and clubs of yet another state. He pulled on his waterproof jacket, picked up the extra book, and cast yet another look at the lumpen Henry-like form under the covers of the bed against the opposite wall. 

"There's cereal," he said clearly. "I bought bananas – you'd better eat them or they'll be bad by the time I get back – and there's milk in the fridge. If you need anything, just call. Pella's going to be around." He'd considered entering Guert's number in Henry's phone too, after all Guert was usually only ever two minutes from Phumber, but the chances of Henry ever asking anyone for help, let alone the college president, were almost nil. 

There was no response.

"I'll call when I get the chance. Leave the ringer on."

Nothing. And then, a gentle rap against the door. Owen shouldered his bag and gave Henry a consoling pat before opening the door and slipping outside. Mike was waiting on the landing, carrying his own bag. Owen shook his head before the inevitable question could even be asked, and the two of them set off down the stairs.

It was a cool May morning, the sun bright, with bands of students roaming the campus clutching books and binders in the eager hysteria of finals mixed with anticipation of the upcoming summer. Next week, after nationals were over one way or another, Owen would be joining them – spending more time with his classmates and drama club friends, preparing classes for summer school, getting in touch with his student ambassador contact in Tokyo…

By the Melville statue was a small group – students talking to Professor Eglantine and the ever-approachable Guert Affenlight, out in his shirt sleeves despite the cool air. Owen looked over and let the look last. They'd spoken by phone the previous evening when Henry had been in the bath, but it wasn't enough. Even seeing him in the flesh, seeing him smile and speak and gesticulate with those long, precise, pianist’s fingers wasn’t nearly enough. Owen had never been punched in the heart, but he’d had his cheekbone fractured by a flying baseball and he imagined the feeling was somewhat similar.

Guert glanced their way and his smile widened a little as he excused himself from the group with a word.

"Michael, Owen! Are you off already?" 

“Bus leaves pretty soon,” Mike confirmed. “We’d take a later flight, but we have to do our best to be rested for the game tomorrow.”

“Good. Good.” 

Owen imagined Guert did a fairly good job of seeming delighted to be in the presence of even those who bored him to tears. Now he might as well have been glowing with joy to be speaking to them. 

“Well,” Guert said, very much _not_ staring at Owen as much as Owen was staring at him. “I wish I were going with you, but _when_ you boys get to the final on Saturday I’m sure I’ll be there.”

It would be too much to even squeeze Guert’s fingertips, to hope for Guert stroking a thumb down his cheek… Owen inclined his head slightly toward the statue. “Giving away the exam questions?”

“What?” Guert followed his gaze. “Oh, no. Some students want to set up a poetry workshop next semester. Not really my forte, but student creativity is always a boon.” His smile now was for Owen, and Owen alone.

Mike looked at them sidelong, checked his watch again. “Maybe I should give you a minute.”

“No, I won’t keep you.” Guert nodded at Owen’s jacket. “You should wrap up, Mr. Dunne. It’s going to rain.”

Owen held up the book he was carrying, indicating his lack of free hands. “How can you tell?”

“Let’s pretend I’m a better sailor than an English professor for a moment.” Guert took the flaps of Owen’s jacket in hand, zipping it up in an action that would look more like a father taking care of his child than the act of a lover, but for the way his hand lingered on the zipper and his deep gray eyes spoke of more than storms.

Guert drew in a breath. “I’ll call you,” Owen said quickly. “When we get in.”

“Okay.” Guert’s hands slipped into his pockets and he looked up at the sky, then back at them both. “Have a good flight. I’ll be thinking about you.”

They made it to the edge of the quad, Mike’s hand pressed into his back to keep him moving, before the students started squealing, binders over their heads as everyone scattered for the dry safety of Phumber or the library. 

“Buddha,” Mike said: low, urgent. “The way he looks at you… I don't know, but I'd kill for a lot of girls to look at me like that. You know it means trouble, sooner or later.”

Trouble? It meant that on Saturday night, after the Harpooners won or lost, when Owen quietly excused himself from the inevitable party or drunken commiserations and found his way to Guert’s hotel room, they’d have plenty to talk about. Not just an eventual ecological crisis this time, but Westish and Tokyo, Pella and Henry. There were no easy answers, or at least none that he could think of, but problems were solved easier when shared with friends, and possibly particularly over celebratory scotch following a great number of reunion kisses.

Owen cast a look over his shoulder at the emptied quad, rain now running in rivulets down from Melville’s coat. Guert, walking back to Scull Hall at an unhurried pace that almost reveled in the bad weather, lifted a hand to smooth back his wet hair, his slate-blue shirt marred by darker streaks.

For an instant, he considered tearing away from Mike, quitting the team, quitting his degree program, and doing whatever it took to run across the puddled quad and spin Guert around by the arm and hug him tightly and say…

But it was May. In a few days the baseball season would be over, finals would be completed, and the sun would be shining. There would be time for grand romantic gestures and tiny heart-tugging moments aplenty in the summer. 

He turned back to Mike and pulled on his sleeve. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

The two of them broke into a jog toward the sports fields, the rain thunderous on rooftops around them. They would be back soon enough, triumphant or defeated. Henry would get the help he needed. Pella would come home. Westish would endure. And Guert… Guert was always dapper, always smiling, the king of all he surveyed.

It was good to know that some things would never change.


End file.
